One lifeless dirge or I, a duke of hell
wakes in a bed thirty days past eviction notice;
sallow post-it notes taped to my door by Zachary
Thunderbird Cicero Leer: Salute the Mirror, all hail Caesar!
And the dead with dishonest pores,
Wandering mother and son,
fan their fingers like flames at me
and a distinct waiting
or familial hesitation like the gloating
halt of old, knobby hands towards wood grain.
A distinct pause as they touch something clean.

And at times, the rust from the red that drains
through my tongue sticks to the walls, something
like rum or rotten fruit, that stink from a peach
pealing too soon, or the organs of an orange
too large for its skin.

The porch I dig with a spade held together
from the arms of other men once my enemies.
When I meet the lip of the river Lethe, I, the duke,
submit a corpse
to keep on floating in the miitth, tolliing priistiine.

neither Saints,with arms riding tides of solemn
speaking or me, quiet on the bus downtown,
an echo moving like nearing blood,
I can feel it in my throat that coming;
and in the distance our glands are frozen,
my muscles stiff in acrid winter,
one that politely dares us to open our mouths,
and let it gather in our lungs.

And in the hour, descending deeper I'll meet him in ice,
and I'll know what it is to fall
into something luckier than violence.

ZanasCross

09-24-2012 10:22 PM

This was solid. I hope to comeback and point out a few places where I felt like my read was jolted by a choice of word or line break... but I might not get around to it. I enjoyed this tremendously though.

seventh_angel

09-25-2012 12:35 PM

There were a few things that didn't work for me, mostly punctuation things. I'll point those out, if it's ok.

"and the dead with dishonest pores wandering mother and son
that pause in their hands as they touch something clean,"

I think you need a comma after pores. Not only I think it's more correct, but it also helps the reading of the entire sentence.

"through my tongue it sticks to the walls, something"

I didn't like the "it" in here, I also prefer how it flows without it, but that's a personal preference.

"The porch, I dig through with a spade, held together"

Again, this is a personal preference, but I really don't like the flow of this line with the commas. I'd get rid of them, but you may know better.

"neither Saints, with arms riding tides of solemn
speaking, quiet on the bus downtown, an echo moving
like nearing blood, I can feel it in my throat that coming
and in the distance, the glands are frozen, my
muscles stiff in acrid winter, one that politely dares us to
open our mouths and let it gather in our lungs."

To me, this whole segment was the weakest part of this piece, mainly because I feel the whole phrasing is too jumbled. I feel like if this was reworked and the phrasing polished, it could have a lot of impact, I just kind of get lost in it. Again, I can be the only one who thinks so, and, in that case, should be ignored.

All in all, this was a really good read, and everything I pointed out were simply small nitpicks of a few things that could be better. I enjoyed this Matt.

crazysam23_Atax

09-25-2012 02:12 PM

I honestly had trouble reading that, due to the way it was formatted. Could you maybe make some of the changes that seventh_angel suggested? I feel like I could critique it better if you did. :shrug:

Something_Vague

09-25-2012 03:30 PM

fixed and edited, thank you.

seventh_angel

09-25-2012 03:37 PM

Yeah, I prefer how this is now. Also, loved the changes on the line breaks. Everything seems clearer like this.

kdownes

09-25-2012 07:37 PM

If Poe had been alive and writing now, I think this is what he would have written like. The imagery is very reminiscent of on of my favourite authors, so perhaps that makes me a bit biased towards this, but I definitely prefer it to your previous piece. There's substance and character here, not just a showing off of skill, but a showing off of skill with a purpose.

Something_Vague

09-26-2012 08:26 PM

Wow thank you, I really appreciate that.

ZanasCross

09-27-2012 04:55 PM

Reworking this section:

neither Saints,with arms riding tides of solemn
speaking or me, quiet on the bus downtown,
an echo moving like nearing blood,
I can feel it in my throat that coming;
and in the distance our glands are frozen,
my muscles stiff in acrid winter,
one that politely dares us to open our mouths,
and let it gather in our lungs.

was the best thing you could do to the piece. This edit is great; and Andre hit the major points I was going to hit in my return to the piece. This should be in a hardcover somewhere so I can occasionally pull it off a shelf; dust off the book and read it.